Parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi said that, if President Gjorge Ivanov refuses to sign the amendments to the Constitution used to rename Macedonia into North Macedonia, they will be published in the Official gazette with his (Xhaferi’s) signature

Xhaferi held a press briefing on Tuesday and during which he boasted that the amendments can be passed even sooner than the expected mid January term because the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party has left the debate. The plenary session on the amendments is scheduled to begin on January 9th.
President Ivanov already refused to sign into law the bill for wider use of the Albanian language, and Xhaferi has been threatening to sent the bill to the Official gazette with his signature for a while.

– I will send the amendments and the law on the Albanian language to the Official gazette. They will have my signature. It will be valid, Xhaferi told the press.

Legal experts, excluding those close to the Government, are unanimous that this would be highly invalid and would even further undermine the legitimacy of any amendments adopted by the Parliament, where a number of representatives face over blackmail, and the proposals are contrary to the will of the people who largely boycotted the September 30th referendum.